Placement: An R package to Access the Google Maps API

A few months ago I set out to write an R package for accessing the Maps API with
my employer’s (paid) Google for Work/Premium account. At the time, I was unable to find an R package that could generate the encrypted signature, send the URL to Google and process the JSON returns in one fell swoop. Following Google’s directions for Python, however, I was able to create an R function that creates valid signatures for a URL request using the digest package’s implementation of the sha-1 algorithm. Along the way I added a few additional features that are useful in our workgroup, including (1) a function to retrieve Google Map’s distance and travel time estimates (via public transit, driving, cycling, or walking) between two places (drive_time), (2) a general purpose function for stripping address vectors of nasty characters that may break a geocode request (address_cleaner), and (3) methods for accessing the Google API with a (free) standard account (see also the excellent ggmaps package, which provides a similar facility for geocoding with Google’s standard API).

In daily use I’ve seen few issues thus far, and I’ve used earlier versions of this package to geocode about a quarter million physical locations in North America. The placement package, which includes examples, can be viewed on Github and installed in the usual way:

Using your Google for Work account obviously requires a client ID and API key, but the methods to do so are well documented in the package help files. Feel free to shoot me an email if you run into any issues!